Event Reminder: An Inspector Calls

17 January 2008

Three first-class first-timers take the stage at Twickenham’s Mary Wallace Theatre this weekend — in the classic J B Priestley thriller An Inspector Calls.

This mystery-with-a-twist set in the Midlands city of Brumley just prior to World War I, marks the debut of new Richmond Shakespeare Society actors Keith Atkinson, Martin Elswood and Jonathan Dunn. Set in 1912, it begins as successful mill owner Arthur Birling and his family celebrate daughter Sheila’s engagement to Gerald Croft, the son of a fellow industrialist.

They are affluent, self absorbed and sure in the belief that nothing can disrupt their lives, till Inspector Goole, investigating the suicide of former Birling employee Eva Smith, arrives to interview them.

They all claim to have had no hand in her demise. But under questioning they reveal uncomfortable facts showing the crucial part they each played in her life — and death.

Veteran director Rodney Figaro, winner of the first-ever Swan award and an RSS member for 32 years, says: “It’s a great whodunnit with socialist undertones showing workers as real people, not just cheap labour — and there’s a surprise revelation in the second and third acts”